Guarding Grace

Rebecca York

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Copyright

About the Author

Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as REBECCA YORK, is the author of more than one hundred books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Mills & Boon® Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.

Prologue

The assassin never left murder to chance.

Night was the best time for the mission he had taken on, which was lucky for the working stiffs who toiled at Bio Gens Labs.

Only one car was in the parking lot, a silver Mercedes occupying the choice reserved spot beside the employees’ entrance.

With his headlights off, he slid in beside it and cut the engine of his rental car.

He had stowed his luggage in the trunk and started the evening with a nice prime-rib dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in downtown Bethesda, Maryland, only ten miles away. Soon he would leave his calling card in this long low building and speed away. Some men would have been too nervous to eat before a big job. He found a full belly added to his feeling of satisfaction.

This was his fourth carefully calculated hit—and the most important. Massachusetts, California and New Jersey had just been rehearsals. With the widely separate locations, nobody had connected the dots. No one knew who had struck a federal judge, a U.S. congressman and a movie producer. Nobody knew who was next. Or why.

Gym bag in hand, he walked through the misty evening to the lab’s delivery entrance. He had clocked the schedule of the security staff who patrolled the grounds of the industrial park. Nobody would be back along this route for twenty minutes.

The lab had a silent alarm, of course. But that didn’t mean squat. By the time the Montgomery County Police Department responded, the place would be history.

After setting down his bag, he got out his stainless-steel lock picks. “The Navy SEALs’ choice,” according to the catalog from which he’d purchased the set.

He’d put in hundreds of hours of practice with these implements.

One pin at a time. Apply force. Find the pin that is binding the post and push it up.

Once inside, he set his gym bag on the receptionist’s desk and removed the explosive device. It was a carefully constructed work of art. Too bad he was the only living person who would see it in such pristine form.

The exterior tubing was made of thick metal. The inside had a plastic liner, designed to hold the explosive mixture—a simple combination of ground aluminum and carbon tetrachloride that would reduce this room and the office beyond to a heap of debris.

He would have liked to use a military fuse. But he never bought his bomb-making materials from sources that could be traced. So he was using one designed for fireworks.

He lit the fuse and glided toward the executive suite at the end of the hall. In an elegantly furnished room fifty feet away, a small man wearing a wrinkled dress shirt bent over his computer keyboard. His dark hair was shot with gray now. His shoulders were slightly hunched. And he was unaware that he had only minutes to live.

Yet some sixth sense pulled the doctor’s attention away from the computer screen.

“Who’s there?”

Whirling in his chair, he turned to face the door—then froze when he saw the figure blocking the exit—bomb in hand.

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?” he demanded with the arrogance of a man who thinks he’s the one in charge.

“I’m one of your children, Dr. Cortez. Don’t you recognize me?”

A jolt of fear flashed in the doctor’s eyes as he reached for the telephone.

The assassin’s reflexes were excellent. He leaped across the room, kicking Cortez away from his desk, toppling his chair and spilling him onto the tile floor. The doctor lay stunned for a moment, then reached to clasp the back of his head. His palm came away covered with blood.

The intruder moved farther into the room, staying out of the man’s reach, the bomb held up like a football ready for a touchdown pass.

Cortez’s gaze flicked from his bloody hand to the intruder’s face, to the bomb with its fuse burning steadily down toward the payload.

“Don’t,” he whimpered.

A fierce explosion cut off his plea. Ending two lives—and thirty years of diabolical scientific research.

Chapter One

Six months later

Grace Cunningham picked up her briefcase and walked into the closet-size room that held the copy machine.

She hated hanging around after her stint in this office was finished. But, if anybody asked, she had a good reason to be here. The last time the great man who’d hired her to organize material for his autobiography had mislaid some of her notes, he’d cost her hours of work. This evening, she wanted her own copy of the research summary.

He’d left her at nine, as he always did, and she had no illusions about why. He was using her as a cover to meet another woman. And they weren’t working on his book. Unless he was planning a chapter on “sexual conquests.”

But as a junior research assistant with a day job at the Smithsonian, Grace wasn’t in a position to complain.

Everybody in her office kept telling her how lucky she was to score this assignment. She didn’t bother filling them in on the level of stress.

She’d thought he was taking his honey farther down the hall. But when intimate laughter drifted through the wall from the adjoining office, Grace went rigid. She didn’t want to hear what was going on in there, but she couldn’t turn off the lurid pictures that suddenly flashed into her mind.

The client was a man of immense power in the capital of the free world. A guy who worked behind the scenes in ways the public couldn’t even imagine. Although a few knew his name, they felt his influence. Only in his late fifties, he was starting to worry about his health.

Grace had seen the woman—a blonde much younger than her lover. Young enough to flatter his ego.

Her low, throaty voice drifted through the closed door. “I have an idea you’ll want to try.”

Grace’s insides clenched. Her mother hadn’t raised her to listen in on a scene like this.

She turned off the copy machine and then the light as a man wearing a business suit stopped in the corridor outside the next-door office and gave the closed door a smirking look. Obviously he knew what was going on in there, too. Feeling her face redden, she took a step back into the shadows, hoping he hadn’t seen her and wouldn’t think she was eavesdropping. Every muscle in her body tensed as she listened to the sound of rustling clothing and panting breath through the connecting door.

Each minute that ticked by felt like a century. Finally she heard the moans of a man reaching orgasm.

Thankful that her unwanted stint as a voyeur was over—she went still when the cry of satisfaction changed to a loud gasping sound of pain.

The man she’d seen in the hall ran through the office where Grace was standing and charged through the connecting door into the room where the lovers were closeted. He was shouting something that sounded like, “Ridgeway is down! Repeat. Ridgeway is down!”

Obviously the guards had gone into panic mode. Seconds later, more footsteps came pounding down the hallway.

The door between the two offices was open, giving Grace an excellent view of what was going on inside. She pressed her fist against her mouth. A few moments ago she’d been embarrassed by the sounds of lovemaking. Now she was grappling with something far worse.

Armed bodyguards kicked open the hall door and shoved their way into the office where the man lay unmoving on the beige carpet.

“Get a doctor,” one of them shouted into the microphone at his collar. “He’s unconscious. Get the defibrillator.”

A man holstered his weapon and sprinted into the hall, reappearing moments later with a plastic case. Someone else started CPR.

Grace shrank into the shadows, her heart pounding as she stared at John Ridgeway, head of the Ridgeway Consortium, one of the most prestigious think tanks in DC. This morning he’d been advising the president. Now he was lying gray and unconscious in a back office of the consortium’s downtown headquarters.

Oh God.

Her gaze bounced around the room, and she saw Ridgeway’s sex partner crouched in the corner, pulling up the bodice of her black dress to cover her small breasts.

The woman’s gaze met Grace’s for a couple of frantic heartbeats, then flicked to the right before settling on the bodyguard bearing down on her. Grace knew her name. It was Karen Hilliard.

The man grabbed Karen by the elbow and pulled her roughly to her feet.

“What the hell did you do?” he demanded, thrusting his face into hers.

She raised her chin. “Nothing. I haven’t done anything. Let me go.”

The man’s hold on her arm tightened. “You’re kidding, right?”

More footsteps came rapidly down the hall, and an older man with thinning dark hair and unstylish horn-rimmed glasses entered the scene of chaos. Grace recognized him at once. Ian Wickers, Ridgeway’s chief of staff.

“What’s happened?”

“Looks like a heart attack.”

“Will he pull through?”

“Don’t know. The doc’s on his way.”

Wickers turned to the guard who held the woman in place. “Take her to the secure room in the basement.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man hustled Karen out. After they were gone, Wickers addressed the room at large, his voice clipped and commanding. “Archer, zip up his fly.”

One of the bodyguards kneeling over the unconscious man unceremoniously maneuvered his limp penis back inside his underwear and zipped up his pants.

Wickers kept talking. “Mr. Ridgeway was alone when he had a heart attack. I’m not going to have a scandal cloud the reputation of the consortium.”

“Yes, sir,” came a chorus of agreement.

From her hiding place in the next room, Grace watched the unfolding drama, her heart thumping. When her knees threatened to give way, she leaned back against the wall, grappling with her own disbelief.

It had all happened so fast. Too fast. She should have done something. But what?

Her brain threatened to shut down. But she forced herself to take deep breaths and stay cool.

One salient fact leaped out at her, grabbed her by the throat and wouldn’t let go.

A cover-up.

She was a witness to a cover-up of major proportions. They’d hauled Karen Hilliard off to the basement and made it look as if John Ridgeway was alone and working late. What was going to happen to Karen Hilliard now? And what would these ruthless men do if they discovered another woman had seen everything? Heard everything. Would they let her live to tell about it?

Feeling as if she was standing on quicksand, she pressed her hand against the hard surface of the copy machine. If only she’d left the building when her research job was over, she’d be home by now.

The medics brought a stretcher and loaded the unconscious man onto it.

“Will he make it?” Wickers asked.

“He’s already dead. Like Michael Jackson,” the doctor answered.

After all the frantic activity, the room and the hallway were finally empty. This might be her only chance to get away.

The security man who had seen her earlier had forgotten about her in the confusion. But when he started thinking clearly, he would remember there’d been a witness.

She wanted to run. But she forced herself not to panic. Two years ago she’d turned her life upside down and come to Washington on her own. If she could do that, she could get through this.

At least she’d caught one lucky break. She’d gone shopping with a coworker on her lunch hour at a couple of the boutiques on Seventh Street. Fumbling in her briefcase, she pulled out a black jockey’s cap and jammed it onto her head, pushing her sable-colored locks out of sight.

She thought about hiding her blue eyes with sunglasses. But that would look strange at night.

Keeping her head down so the security cameras wouldn’t pick up her face, she stepped out of the copy-machine room.

But she couldn’t stop the death scene from playing out in her mind. She’d known Ridgeway had heart problems. And hidden them from the public. He was arrogant. And secretive. And he’d thought he could operate outside the laws of God and man.

She started to turn away. Then from under the sofa, she caught the glint of something that sparkled. As she stared at it, she remembered the split second when Karen had looked at her—then to her right. Toward the couch.

Every self-protective instinct screamed at Grace to get out of the building before it was too late. But instead of running in the other direction, she took a quick step toward the couch, then another. Reaching underneath, she felt something that wasn’t part of the office equipment. It was Karen’s beaded evening bag.

Had it gotten kicked there during the emergency? Or had Karen deliberately hidden it?

Why? As proof of what had happened?

Or maybe she’d understood Grace’s dilemma—and handed her a kind of insurance policy.

With shaking fingers, she shoved the evening bag into her briefcase. Conscious that she had to get out before they locked down the consortium complex, she stood and walked into the hall, striding to the exit as if she’d only been working late.

“See you next week?” the security guard asked, and she knew he wasn’t in the loop.

“Yes,” she managed to say in a cheerful voice as she turned in her badge, signed out and walked toward the gate that opened onto Pennsylvania Avenue, praying it was still open.

BRADY LOCKWOOD bent his muscular six-foot frame so that he could stare into the unpromising depths of the refrigerator, eyeing a red-and-white carton of kung pao chicken and half a Philly cheese steak.

How old were they, exactly? Probably old enough to send his digestive system into spasms.

He tossed the takeout containers into the trash, then grabbed a bottle of ginger beer and took a swig, wincing as the sharp bite of the potent soft drink hit his mouth.

For the past three years he’d lived in Washington, DC, in La Fontana, one of the grand old apartment buildings that lined upper Connecticut Avenue.

Better get back to work, he told himself, heading for the office down the hall. He’d taken a new case this afternoon. Typical P.I. deadbeat-dad stuff. Not like the interesting assignments he’d gotten from the Light Street Detective Agency.

But that was then. This was now.

He’d just started thumbing through the files, when the phone rang. Although the ID didn’t give the caller’s name, the number told him it was the Ridgeway residence.

He braced to hear his brother asking for help with his latest mess.

Instead, John’s wife expelled the breath she must have been holding. “Brady, thank God.”

“Lydia, what’s wrong?” he asked, picturing her delicate aristocratic features stiff with tension but not a strand of her dyed auburn hair out of place.

“I can’t talk over the phone,” she said, her control almost slipping. “Just come over here. I … need you.”

I need you.

In the twenty-five years they’d known each other, she had never uttered those words. In public she could look friendly. But she’d never asked for his help. What was going on over there?

“I’m on my way.”

Hurriedly, Brady changed from sweats into dark slacks and a button-down shirt. As an afterthought, he shrugged into a tweed jacket and paused to swipe a comb through his unruly dark hair.

On the ride up rain-washed Connecticut Avenue, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He reached for his cell phone, then drew his hand back. He couldn’t call Lydia to ask what was wrong, not when she’d sounded so secretive. Was she going behind John’s back? What?

As he wove in and out of traffic, his mind drifted to the strange workings of fate. And of genetics.

Brady might be the smarter brother, but it was John who had the ear of the U.S. President.

Brady’s goals had been more modest. He’d seen what the quest for power did to a man, how it changed his values and warped his perspective. All he’d wanted was a fulfilling job, a comfortable life—and a wife and two kids.

His hands clenched on the wheel. Unfortunately, that had been too much to ask.

As he turned into the driveway of the Ridgeway estate, the man in the guardhouse gave him a grim-faced look. Before Brady could blink, a bank of bright lights switched on, momentarily blinding him.

“Get out of the car,” a voice boomed. “Keep your hands in the air where we can see them.”

Chapter Two

Shadows moved behind the lights. Men. With guns—judging by the glint of metal.

“Out of the car,” the voice boomed again. “On the double if you don’t want to get your ass shot.”

Brady stepped into the rain, blinking as the spotlights stabbed into his vision.

From behind the wall of light, he heard a familiar voice, Bill Giordano, the man who headed his brother’s home security detail.

“It’s okay, Taylor. He’s Ridgeway’s brother.”

Brady was allowed to get back into the car, along with the security man, and they proceeded up a curving drive toward the fifty-room mansion his brother had bought ten years ago.

“What are you doing here?” Giordano said, speaking in the quiet tone that Brady knew meant watch out how you answer.

“Lydia called me. She said she needed me. What’s going on?”

“There’s no easy way to say this. Your brother is dead.”

Brady managed to drag in enough air to say, “How?”

“Heart attack—we think,” Giordano answered. “He was catching up on some work at the office before he and Lydia went to a reception.”

“Doesn’t the consortium have a doctor on staff?”

“And defibrillators. All the goddamn latest equipment. If they could have saved him, you know damn well they would have.”

Brady nodded, trying to pull himself together.

Lydia was waiting for him in the upstairs family lounge. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she walked toward him, setting a glass on an end table as she crossed the room.

As if to mock the occasion, she was dressed for an evening reception in a long emerald gown that was the perfect color for her hair and skin.

When she embraced him, the scent of the liquor on her breath grabbed him as tightly as her arms, and a seductive thought wove itself into his mind. He could have a shot of bourbon. Just one. To get himself through the trauma of John’s death.

Stop it.

One drink, and he was on a one-way trip to hell. No bourbon. No exceptions.

THE CAB PULLED up in front of Grace’s apartment just off Dupont Circle. She already had a ten-dollar bill in her hand, which she handed to the cabdriver.

“Keep the change,” she called as she hurried through the drizzle to the front door of the converted brownstone. Once it had been a single residence. Now each floor had two apartments.

Her low-heeled shoes clattered on the uncarpeted wooden steps as she climbed to her second-floor unit, unlocked her front door and stepped into the small living room.

When she’d locked the door behind her, she stopped short, her stomach clenching as she looked around the shadowy room. She’d been strapped for cash when she came to DC, and she’d lovingly put together this refuge with more imagination than money. Her sofa and coffee table were from a secondhand shop in Adams Morgan. She’d found the worn Oriental rug and the wicker baskets at garage sales. And she’d rescued the Queen Anne end tables from the alley two steps ahead of the trash truck.

She’d thought she was making a home for herself. Now she knew she’d been kidding herself.

John Ridgeway’s death had changed everything. Quickly she checked to make sure nobody was lurking inside the apartment.

BRADY EYED the security man hovering discreetly at the edges of the room. “Where can we talk privately?” he asked Lydia.

His sister-in-law turned, the taffeta skirt of her evening gown swishing as she led him down the hall to a bedroom that looked as if it could have graced a Louisiana plantation house.

She sank onto an antique curved-back sofa. Brady took a parlor chair opposite her. Her complexion was pale, but her eyes were fierce.

“Let’s cut to the chase. I know John was seeing other women. He’d done it through most of our marriage. That’s why he stayed late at work tonight.”

He answered with a tight nod. John loved to brag about his conquests. Man-to-man. Never to his wife. And then there was the illegitimate son he’d asked Brady to locate—not that John had actually gotten in touch with the boy as far as Brady knew.

He pulled out the small notebook he always carried and started making terse, cryptic notes.

“We had a reception tonight. At the Cosmos Club. He said he wanted to get in a couple of hours of work first—on his autobiography. With that research assistant from the Smithsonian. Grace Cunningham. He’s been seeing her for a couple of months.”

Brady cleared his throat. “And his security men knew what he was really doing? ”

“I assume so.”

“When did he usually meet with Grace Cunningham?” “From six to eight on Tuesdays. She should have been gone when he died. But his staff could be lying about that.” “Did he write her address or phone number in his book?”

Lydia stepped into the walk-in closet and came out carrying a manila folder.

When Brady opened it, he saw a picture of a young, appealing woman with dark, chin-length hair and blue eyes. She was pretty, but she certainly didn’t look like a seductress. Maybe that was part of her charm for John. Behind the picture were several pages of personal background.

“Can I take this?”

“Yes.”

“What about his address book?” Lydia hesitated.

“Would you rather have John’s brother check his contacts—or the DC police?”

Lydia left the room and returned with a small blue book, which she handed to him.

When a knock sounded at the door, he thrust the folder into the waistband of his slacks in back, where it was hidden by his sports jacket, and the address book into his pants pocket.

“Come in.”

“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Giordano said. “We’ll be making an announcement soon about your husband’s death. You might want to change into a dark suit before the press shows up here.”

Lydia looked down at her evening gown as if realizing that she was dressed for a formal reception.

Standing quickly, she took a moment to compose herself. When she spoke, her voice was well modulated. “Yes. I’ll be right with you.”

The door closed again, and she raised her eyes to Brady. “I want to know if one of his enemies killed him. I mean—did somebody send in a woman to cut off the blood flow to his carotid artery or something? You have to find out what happened.”

“If I can, I will,” he promised. He was really speaking to himself, not Lydia. He’d gotten used to cleaning up John Ridgeway’s messes. Maybe he was too comfortable with that role.

What he did now depended on what he discovered—starting with Grace Cunningham.

GRACE WANTED to scream at Karen Hilliard. Instead she pulled off her business suit and pulled on jeans, running shoes and a dark T-shirt. Leaving her good clothes in a pile on the bedroom floor, she made for the kitchen. Because she didn’t want to announce that she was home, she worked with only the illumination from a streetlight outside the window as she pulled the sugar canister out of the cabinet, then started digging in the white grains like a dog looking for a buried bone.

As her fingers closed around the legal-size envelope, she breathed out a small sigh. She was going to need the cash. No credit cards. Not in the name of Grace Cunningham.

Or Ginnie Cutler.

She’d buried Ginnie two years ago. Everybody she’d known from before she’d made her big decision thought she had died in a boating accident. Even her parents, and it still made her heart squeeze when she thought about how her death must have devastated them.

They didn’t even have the solace of a grave site—after all the years of raising their daughter, of loving their daughter.

Scenes from her life flashed through her mind as she dashed down the hall to the bedroom.

She remembered the pink-and-white little girl’s bedroom that had made her happy. Her eighth birthday party when she’d proudly taken eight friends out to lunch. The smile on Mom’s face when her daughter had graduated from high school.

Her parents hadn’t had a lot of money, but they’d showered their daughter with love and given her the confidence to take the road she traveled now.

She’d come to Washington with a carefully constructed new identity and a lot of optimism. Like those first-term congressmen who thought they were going to make a difference. You could check her driver’s license, her Social Security number and her college transcript—from Barnard instead of Brown, where she’d really gotten her history degree. All the documents would testify to whom she was supposed to be. The background had stood up to even Ridgeway Consortium scrutiny. Not anymore. They’d go digging and find out that Grace Cunningham had never really existed.

But before that—they’d check the visitors’ book and see when she’d left this evening.

When she’d escaped through the Pennsylvania Avenue exit, she’d barely been thinking about her next move. Now she knew she was going to have to disappear—again. And come back as someone else. If she had the cash to do it again.

Not that she’d committed a crime. She’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the bedroom she switched on the television, turning the volume low, and caught the news on CNN.

They were reporting John Ridgeway’s death. But nothing had changed about the story.

So much for honesty in the halls of power.

As she stared at the television set, she wanted to curl up in a ball on the bed and close her eyes. She wanted to wake up and find out the past hour was all a horrible dream. But it was real. Just like the nightmare of two years ago.

Only now a powerful man was dead, and she was a witness. And if she didn’t want to end up like Karen, a secret detainee, she’d better get the hell out of here.

She was throwing clothing into a duffel bag when she heard the wooden stairs creak. Her hand on a pair of jeans, she went rigid, listening intently.

It could be one of the neighbors. Maybe nosy Mrs. Sullivan who was always peeking out her front door to see if Grace was bringing anybody home.

The next sound she heard was something metal sliding into the lock of her apartment door.

No knock. Nobody calling out, “Police. Open up.”

For a second, she was too stunned to move. Then she shoved the money into her purse, along with Karen Hilliard’s evening bag.

Without a second thought, she abandoned the duffel bag in the middle of the bed, thrust open the window and climbed out onto the ledge.

She hated to take extra time. But an open window was a dead giveaway, so she turned to ease down the sash behind her.

Thank God she was in good shape from all those laps at the pool—and the fencing lessons she’d been taking.

After slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, she lowered herself by her hands and let go, landing with a thunk on the roof of the next building. As soon as she hit the flat surface, she sprinted toward the edge, skirting puddles of standing water.

Behind her, through the old glass, she heard footsteps running through her apartment—then men’s voices.

“Where the hell is she?”

“Maybe she didn’t go home.”

“Where else would she go?”

Without looking over her shoulder, she kept moving across the gravel, then over the side of the building. “She’s on the roof.” “Don’t let her get away.”

Lord, who were these men? The DC cops? Or more likely John Ridgeway’s private security force.

Either way, she was pretty sure that getting caught could be a fatal error.

Fear swelled inside her chest, making it hard to breathe. But she didn’t break her stride until she came to the edge of the building. As she lowered herself over the side, she saw a man coming out the window.

Two of them had barged through the front door without announcing their presence. Was the other one going around back to cut her off at the pass.

She dropped to the roof of a garage, then to the alley.

“Stop her!”

Praying she could make it, she hurtled down the alley, her running shoes splashing through puddles of dirty water. Before she reached the car, a hand whipped out from the shadows and grabbed her shoulder.

Grace screamed, the sound coming to her above the roaring in her ears.

She’d almost made it—and now …

A man barked out a gruff order. “Hold it right there, sweetheart.”

It wasn’t necessary to fake terror. She was literally shaking in her shoes. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered. “I won’t. If you come quietly.” Oh sure.

When he turned her toward him, she went still, pretending to comply, letting him think he had control of a woman too terrified to resist. But as she came around, she lashed out, whacking her elbow into his armpit the way they’d told her to do in self-defense class.

He was totally unprepared for the attack. Grunting, he dropped his hold on her shoulder.

Free of his control, she struck out with her foot, catching him in the balls. He screamed as he doubled over.

But he wasn’t the only one she had to worry about. Another man dropped over the side of the roof, charging toward her.

If she ran, she had no chance. So she played deer in the headlights, standing still and breathing hard, forcing herself to wait until he was almost on her. Then she moved, using her body weight to shove the first guy into the second.

They both went down.

A curse rang out behind her as she turned and sprinted away, knowing this was her last chance.

Her lower lip wedged between her teeth, she kept moving, braced for the pain of a bullet slamming into her back.

Instead, just as she turned the corner, another man stepped into her path, trapping her.

“Come on,” he said.

As he took in her wide-eyed look, he snapped, “I’m not one of them.” “Then who?” “The cavalry. Come on.” “Where?”

“Away. Let me help you, before they catch up with you.” With a gun in his hand, he gestured toward a car pulled up at the curb. The guy looked tough and capable but subtly different from the men who’d broken into her apartment. Making a split-second decision, she climbed into the car.

Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought it might break through the wall of her chest.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“It looks like I’m your bodyguard.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You put up a good fight, but they would have gotten you in the end.”

She sighed, eyeing him. “What’s your name?” “Brady Lockwood.”

Oh Lord. She should have recognized him! But the photos she’d seen of him had been old. He hardly looked like the same guy.

“You’re John Ridgeway’s brother.”

Chapter Three

Brady drove toward Georgetown with no particular destination in mind. The one thing he knew was that going home wasn’t an option at the moment. Despite claiming to be her bodyguard, he still didn’t know if he was going to end up taking Grace Cunningham to the cops. And he sure as hell didn’t trust her enough to let her into his apartment.

As she sat next to him, she radiated tension. Yeah, well, she should. She’d been involved in something pretty nasty this evening.

He saw her hands trembling. She was on the edge, and maybe he could use that to his advantage.

Turning off Wisconsin Avenue, he pulled onto a side street and under a streetlight that gave him enough illumination to see her.

When the car came to a stop, she glanced around in alarm. “Where are we?”

“On the run. But you look like you could use a friend.” “I’m fine,” she protested.

“Of course not. You’ve been through a rough couple of hours.”

He cut the engine, then reached across the console and gathered her close, stroking his hands over her back and shoulders, then into her hair, feeling her tremble.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispered.

She stayed rigid for a moment, then relaxed against him. As he kept stroking her, murmuring low, reassuring words, he was having trouble fitting her into the murder scenario he’d constructed on the way to her apartment. The picture he’d seen made her look like the soul of innocence. The woman clinging to him gave the same impression. Yet he’d also seen her dispatch a couple of tough guys in the alley. Let’s not forget about that.

“I’m scared.”

“Yeah. I understand.”

He’d taken her in his arms for purely mercenary reasons, yet he couldn’t keep himself from reacting to the softness of her skin, her light flower scent, the clean feel of her hair.

Careful, Brady, he warned himself. This is no time to be taken in by a woman who could work her way into a weekly liaison with the head of the Ridgeway Consortium.

Yet she didn’t seem like one of John’s honeys. He went for women who were flashier, blonder. Women who knew that John Ridgeway might be able to help them along in the world.

She was more like Brady’s own type. A lot more. Or was it that he had stayed away from any romantic relationships for too long? And the first young, pretty woman who came along was tugging at his emotions in unexpected ways.

He should distance himself from her, but he stayed where he was, captured not only by the physical attributes of the woman but also by a sense of connection.

Her voice woke him up to reality.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that you showed up in the alley in back of my apartment.”

“Yeah.”

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I stopped by my brother’s house. He had your address and your photo in a personnel file.”

“Okay.”

He reminded himself that he should be the one getting information, and he didn’t want to be staring over Grace Cunningham’s shoulder when he questioned her. He wanted to be looking into her eyes. Would they shift to the side or stay steady?

Easing away, he asked, “Are you feeling better?” “Some.”

“Who was after you?”

Her gaze turned inward as she considered the question. “I’m not sure. Could be security guards from the Ridgeway Consortium,” she said in a flat voice.

“The news said my brother was alone when he died.”

She moistened her lips. “That’s a lie.”

“Oh yeah? How do you know? Were you with him?”

“No.”

“But you were having an affair with him,” Brady said because he wasn’t going to get sucked into feeling sorry for this woman. Or feeling anything. He’d said he was her bodyguard. But that was for his convenience, not hers.

Her eyes shot up to him and her voice turned hard as she said, “I was not having an affair with him. He didn’t appeal to me that way.”

“You just said you were with him when he died.”

She gave him a glacial look. “That’s not what I said at all. I said he wasn’t alone. I wasn’t with him. There’s a difference.”

He kept the questions coming. “You were supposed to be working on a research project with him, but you were really having a liaison.”

“No,” she said again. “He was using me for something else.”

CHARLES HANCOCK WAS a man used to making life and death decisions—and collecting the huge fees his clients were willing to pay.

Tonight he sat on the leather sofa in the den of his McLean mansion. The floor-to-ceiling drapes were open, and he could look out over his property.

The television played softly across the room. One of those programs he liked on Animal Planet where a macho guy ran around jumping into alligator pools or sticking his hand into scorpion holes. Charles was always hoping one of the fools would get chomped to death. Or stung by a stingray, like that Australian guy.

The show was good background for cleaning his Glock model 17L, a sweet little handgun if he’d ever seen one.

He glanced at the clock. It was ten and time for Anderson Cooper. The boy came across as steady and reliable. Charles had made that a rule of his own life.

He had no illusions of his own power. Or his own tragedies. After his wife and son had died in a terrorist attack in Egypt, he’d vowed to devote himself to the greater good of humanity. As he saw it. His goal was a stable society—with power in the hands of the people who knew how to wield it.

He stayed in the background, quietly giving substantial amounts of money to causes he thought would make a difference. Like his college scholarship fund for disadvantaged kids. A lot of people had written them off, but he understood that the better chances those kids had in life, the more likely they were to stay out of trouble.

Charles switched channels then sat up straighter when he saw the concerned expression on Cooper’s lean face.

“White House advisor John Ridgeway suffered a fatal heart attack this evening while catching up on some work in his office.” The anchor’s words hit him like rocks slamming against a cement wall.

Carefully Charles set the handgun on the table in front of him.

Ridgeway was dead. Supposedly he’d died alone in his office.

Charles’s mind flashed back to November six months ago, when an intruder had blown himself up—along with Dr. Richard Cortez—at the Bio Gens Laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland.

Cortez had been a close friend and colleague. When he’d heard the news, Charles went back and looked at the deaths of some of his clients. Pat Richmond in Massachusetts. Joe Barlow in California. Ted Pierson in New Jersey.

Richmond had died in a hit-and-run accident. Barlow had been at home when a burglar broke into his Beverly Hills mansion. Pierson had drowned in a boating accident.

He’d wanted to dismiss those deaths—and half a dozen others—as unrelated. That was before the pipe bomb at Bio Gens Labs. Two people had died. Cortez and someone else—presumably the bomber.

Charles had obtained a sample of the DNA from what was left of the bodies. And what he discovered had brought cold sweat to his skin.

The police had never solved that mystery. Now what about Ridgeway? Were the authorities going to get a crack at the case—or was a grand cover-up in motion?

“MAYBE YOU’D BETTER explain what you mean about his using you for something else,” Brady said.

He watched Grace drag in a breath and let it out.

“I was in the office complex, but your brother was with another woman when he died. They went into another office together. They made love. Then he gasped, and I assume he had a heart attack. There must have been security guards right around the corner. As soon as it happened, a couple of them rushed in—followed by Ian Wickers who runs security at the Ridgeway Consortium.”

“I know who Wickers is!” He glared at her. “You expect me to believe someone else was with my brother?”

“Earlier, I was working with him on notes for his autobiography. We had a standing appointment every Tuesday night.”

Just what Lydia had told him.

“Did you know he was working on an autobiography?” Grace Cunningham asked.

“He hadn’t shared that with me.”

“Probably he didn’t want to tell you anything until he had a publisher lined up.”

That sounded pretty cynical. Yet the observation fit. John wouldn’t want to make a big announcement until he’d signed a multi-million-dollar book contract.

She continued with her version of the evening’s events. “After our sessions together, he always left me and went to meet someone else.”

He kept his gaze fixed on her. “That’s an interesting story. Why should I believe it?”

CHARLES HANCOCK TYPED in his password—Paladin. It was from an old TV show, where a guy in a black hat rode around the old west righting wrongs.

He’d loved the show when he was a kid. So he’d appropriated the title. Paladin wasn’t the Lone Ranger. He didn’t always play by the rules. But he got things done.

The way Cortez had.

The doctor’s death had been a personal tragedy. But Charles would find the right man to take over the research. Someone with vision. Someone who understood the importance of maintaining stability in the government of the United States—and ultimately the world.

All the Bio Gens protocols were in the computer. Waiting for the right moment to start the project up again.

But right now he was into damage control.

His source at the consortium had confirmed his suspicion that Ridgeway hadn’t been alone when he’d suffered his fatal heart attack. It seemed that he’d been playing Russian roulette with his health. He’d been with a woman, but Ian Wickers was keeping that information inside the building.

Good. That suited Charles’s purposes perfectly. The fewer people who knew what had really happened, the better.

He had the woman’s name. Karen Hilliard. He drummed his fingers lightly on the computer keyboard. He hated giving in to conspiracy theory. However, in this case he knew it was justified. When you put Ridgeway’s death together with the murders across the country and then the explosion at Dr. Cortez’s lab you came up with an unfortunate pattern.

The man who had blown himself up—along with Cortez—had been a rare bird. He’d called himself Billy Carmichael. But that was the name he’d taken after he’d disappeared into thin air.

Charles knew his real identity from the DNA sample he’d obtained. Billy Carmichael was one of the babies who had been conceived in a petri dish at Bio Gens Labs—then sold to childless couples desperate for children. Couples who bore all the expenses of raising one of Cortez’s little darlings yet didn’t know what a remarkable youngster they sheltered.

He switched to another database—the children. He didn’t usually go into it unless he had a request from one of his clients.

Now he plugged in Karen Hilliard’s name. He didn’t find her, but he had a pretty good idea who she was. Three years ago, one of the children—now grown—had gone missing. A young woman named Kate Winthrop.

Charles’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the computer screen. He had no conclusive proof, but he’d be willing to bet that Kate Winthrop and Karen Hilliard were one and the same.

She’d been one of Cortez’s more bizarre experiments. He’d brought her into the world just to prove he could do it. Really, she’d been of no real use to anyone.

And now Charles cursed himself for not getting rid of her when he’d had the chance.

Switching to e-mail, he sent a message to his Ridgeway Consortium contact. First he wanted a physical description of Karen Hilliard. And her DNA—if he could get it.

Had she been working with the man who had blown himself up—along with Dr. Cortez? Or was she on a private mission?

Either way, he needed answers. And if he got the wrong one, he would have to take drastic action.

BRADY WATCHED GRACE Cunningham glare at him.

“I’m not telling you a ‘story,'” she said, punching out the words. “And you should believe me because I haven’t jumped out of the car and started running.”

“How about, you know, I’d catch you and bring you back.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” She kept her gaze steady. “Tonight, your brother was in the office next door when he had a heart attack. After he died, Wickers told one of the agents to take the woman to the basement. While they were busy with her and with your brother, I managed to get out of the building.”

“You’ll pardon me if I’m having a little trouble connecting with this fantasy.”

She shifted in her seat. She might be spinning him a story, but she was scared of something—and not necessarily of him.

Then there was the logic of the situation. If she’d really been in the same room with John when he’d died, could she have gotten away?

He studied her face. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her. Had he seen her at one of the parties that John insisted on dragging him to? The parties where he watched people drinking cocktails and highballs.

She surprised him by saying, “Your brother spoke very highly of you.”

He snorted. “My job was taking care of business he didn’t want made public.”

“Then maybe you can do one last thing for him.”

“Which is?”

“Find out what really happened and expose the cover-up.”

He kept his gaze on her, hoping his posture gave nothing away. On the way to Grace’s apartment, he’d called Wickers, and the guy had blown him off. Maybe Grace Cunningham really was what he’d been praying for—to use a conventional phrase because he hadn’t prayed in years. If she was willing to tell the truth. But he wasn’t going to act too eager.

He lifted one shoulder. “Maybe it’s better to leave it the way it is.”

“You want Wickers and his pals to control the situation? When I got home—armed men were only a few minutes behind me. Then you came and rescued me.” She sighed. “Or maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe you’ve already pushed a secret buzzer on your cell phone, and they’re coming for me now.”

“Maybe,” he answered and watched her shoulders tighten.

“One woman’s already disappeared. The woman who was with your brother. Either she’s still in the basement of the Ridgeway Consortium, or they’ve taken her somewhere else. Or she’s already dead.”

“Dead! I’ve only got your word that she exists.”

She reached into the large purse that sat on her lap and pulled out an evening bag. “While the guards were busy, I took a big chance and grabbed this.”

When she laid it on the console next to him, he turned on the overhead light, then opened the bag. Inside was a wallet with a driver’s license belonging to someone named Karen Hilliard. There were also a couple of credit cards, a library card and an auto-club card. He held up the driver’s license. She was an attractive woman with large dark eyes, short cropped blond hair and a challenging look on her face. More John’s type. Just as with Grace Cunningham, he felt as if he knew her—only in this case, the conviction was even stronger.

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know much about her.”

“This could belong to anyone,” he said.

“Sure. I made the whole thing up—to get myself off the hook.” She dragged in a breath. “There’s got to be a record of her entering the building. Oh, wait—they would have wiped it out.”

“Maybe we should have a talk with her.”

“If you can get into the Ridgeway Consortium basement—or wherever they’re holding her now. I could tell Wickers I know about her.”

“That might shorten your life.”

“You think your brother’s chief of staff is desperate enough to kill?”

“If he thinks it’s necessary.”

Brady knew John had hired Wickers for his expertise, and his ruthlessness. Him and that other guy, Phil Yarborough, who had a background working for a mercenary company that had gotten in trouble in Iraq. Neither man was going to give up anything he thought he could keep private.

He made a split-second decision. “Come back to my apartment and we’ll talk about it.” He hoped he wouldn’t be sorry.

Chapter Four

Karen Hilliard looked around her bleak surroundings. She was huddled on a narrow bed in a storage room, but it might as well be a cell.

A guy named Phil Yarborough had already questioned her, and she’d stuck to her story about meeting John Ridgeway at a party and letting him seduce her. Yarborough hadn’t believed her. She hadn’t expected that he would. And she was braced for the interrogation to get rougher.

When the door opened, she willed herself to steadiness. Yarborough strode back into the basement room and slammed the door behind him. Crossing to her, he grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her to her feet.

“What the hell is going on?” he bellowed.

Determined not to let him scare her, she raised her chin. “I can’t answer that question until you tell me what you want to know—specifically.”

He took a breath as he struggled for calm. “We ran your fingerprints.”

“And?”

“They come up as a match for John Ridgeway.” When she didn’t deny it, he gave her a shake. “How did you manage it?”

“New technology.”

“Which is?”

She shrugged. “I’m not all that technical. I just follow directions.”

“So you’re admitting that somebody sent you here—to kill John Ridgeway.”

Okay, time for plan B.

“I’m admitting that somebody wanted me to contact Ridgeway.” “Who?”

“I don’t know, exactly. My guess is that they have ties to the Middle East.”

“What makes you think so?”

“They look Arabic.”

“And why are you working with them? ”

“Because I need money.”

“You’re lying.”

“What makes you think so?” she asked, echoing his phrasing.

“You’re too dedicated. You have your own agenda. What do you have to gain by defending an Arab terrorist group?”

“They said they’d kill me if I talked.”

“Then you’re caught between a rock and a hard place because I’m going to kill you unless you come clean with me.”

“I can’t tell you anything if I’m dead, can I?”

He led her to the chair in the room and pushed her down, then pulled out a pair of handcuffs. As he secured her wrists to the wooden arms, a tremor went through her.

Roughly, he turned her hand over and looked at the tips of her fingers, then ran his thumbnail over the whorls.

“How did they do it?” he asked again. “Some kind of artificial skin?”

When she lifted a delicate shoulder, he drew back a hand and slapped her across the face. “Stop lying to me!” She gasped, then met his eyes. “You figure it out.” “I will,” he vowed.

BRADY DROVE BACK to La Fontana. After parking in the garage, he took Grace up to his third-floor apartment.

When they stepped inside, he saw her inspecting the place and wondered what she would think of his decor. Although he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to fashion details, the furniture was comfortable.

But it seemed she wasn’t interested in his decorating skills. Instead she walked to a window and looked out. “We’re too high to get out this way.”

“We don’t have to.”

“Are you sure?”

“You think you’re in the middle of a conspiracy?”

“I know I’m in the middle of a cover-up. I know Wickers thinks I’m a loose end.”

He wanted to argue that this was America, not the Gulag Archipelago. But he remembered his own recent confrontation at gunpoint in the driveway of his brother’s estate. Something was going on, and this woman could help him get to the bottom of it. But she was also in trouble, and he was going to keep her safe. At least until he knew the real story.

“You want some coffee?” he asked.

She looked at her watch. “At two in the morning?”

“Well, maybe decaf.”

They both walked into the kitchen, where he remembered his previous encounter with his larder. “Sorry, there’s no milk.” “That’s okay.”

“I forget to buy groceries,” he said, wondering why he felt compelled to explain.

“That’s okay,” she answered again, and he thought from the tone of her voice that perhaps she knew he’d had a wife and daughter—until they’d been killed in a car accident.

Determined to switch the focus back to her, he asked, “You’re a freelance researcher?”

“My day job is at the Smithsonian.”

“It’s a big place. Where exactly?”

“The Air and Space Museum.”

“You have an engineering background?”

She laughed. “No. But I can research any subject. I was working on an exhibit that will showcase World War I-era planes. I was recommended to your brother and decided to take the assignment. The autobiography was legit and the pay was good, but I just didn’t know I’d also be covering for his … habit.”

He ignored the observation as he filled the kettle and set it on a burner. Maybe it was true. Maybe not. He knew John Ridgeway hadn’t been a particularly nice guy. But that was no excuse for murdering him. If it had been murder.

“Did you know Karen Hilliard?” he asked. “I mean, outside your contact at the Ridgeway Consortium.”

“We knew each other.”

“Were you friends?”

“We traveled in some of the same circles,” she answered, and he thought she was skating around the truth. “Which circles?” “Young DC professionals.” “The bar scene?”

“Sometimes. And parties. Some of them on the Hill. Some at people’s houses. Anywhere from basement apartments in Columbia Heights to Georgetown mansions.”

“You from DC originally?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Chicago.”

They were standing close together. He could reach out and hold her the way he’d done in the car. To comfort her, he asked himself, or because he wanted to feel her body against his? He wondered if that was the real reason he’d initially decided not to bring her here. Staying in a public place meant he couldn’t start anything with her.

He stopped that line of thought. Getting intimate with this woman was the last thing that should be on his mind.

He wondered what she saw in his face when she suddenly said, “You don’t have to be tough all the time. It’s all right for you to feel … sad about your brother.”

“I don’t need advice, thanks,” he answered quickly, all too aware of the last time he’d let himself give in to grief. But that had been very different. Losing Carol and Lisa had been a body blow. He was still coming to terms with John’s passing, but it didn’t feel the same. He’d loved his wife and daughter. Fiercely. When he’d learned of John’s death, he’d been shocked, but not plunged immediately into a black hole of devastation. He’d miss his brother, but his death wouldn’t leave a gaping wound in his life.

“We’re not going to talk about me,” he added, making his voice firm.

“Why not?”

“It’s not relevant.”

“You get to make the rules?”

“Yeah. Because I’m the one who drove you away from certain captivity.”

“Well, that was very noble of you, but it doesn’t mean I can’t walk away from you now.”

Tension crackled between them. From the look in her eyes, he was sure she would dump him if that suited her plans. He felt a pang he couldn’t explain. He wanted to keep her with him, and he didn’t even know if it was for the right reasons. For that matter, he didn’t know what the right reasons were. He’d started out thinking she was sleeping with his brother.

Now he thought she was telling the truth about how she fit into the picture. But the whole truth?

He’d damn well better find out and damn well better keep his head on straight while he did it.

“Where would you go?” he asked.

He was glad to see she looked uncertain. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Where were you going when I caught up with you in the alley?”

“Away.”

“No specific destination in mind?” Before she could answer, a knock sounded at the front door.

They both stiffened, and he looked at the clock again. It was just after two. No time for a social visit. Or any kind of visit.

“Maybe you should ask who it is,” she whispered. Yeah, that was the logical first step. He walked toward the door and called out, “Who’s there?” “Ridgeway Security.”

He’d smugly assumed that Grace was safe in his apartment. And Grace had been acting as if she didn’t need his protection. But when she turned frightened eyes to him, he knew they’d both made major miscalculations.

He kept his voice steady. “Go into the bedroom. It’s at the end of the hall.”

As she hurried to the back of the apartment, a second knock sounded.

“Just a minute,” he called out, rubbing his hand through his hair to muss it up. He walked to the door and looked through the peephole. Through the distorted lens, he saw two tough-looking men standing in the hall. Although it was hard to be sure, he thought he’d never seen either one of them before.

“Open up.”

“I’m getting dressed,” he answered, undoing the top two buttons of his wrinkled dress shirt.

When he opened the door, the men pushed their way past him and into the apartment.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask for permission to enter?” he asked.

“Didn’t you just give it to us?” “No. I want your names.”

The one who had been speaking said, “I’m Mosley.” “Kessler,” the other one offered. “Can I see your credentials?”

They both reached inside their suit jackets and brought out small leather cases with their cards and Ridgeway IDs. Unless the creds were fake, both of them worked for his brother’s consortium.

“What’s this about?” Brady asked as they put the credentials away.

“Your car was spotted in the vicinity of Grace Cunningham’s apartment earlier this evening. Is she here?”

He gave the speaker a quizzical look. “I think you’re mistaken. Who is Grace Cunningham?”

“She had an appointment with your brother tonight.”

“And?”

“Given the untimely demise of Mr. Ridgeway, we want to ask her some questions.” “She’s not here.”

“Do you mind if we look around?” “Yes, I mind.”

Despite that, Mosley walked past him into the living room. After opening the closet and looking behind the furniture, he searched the kitchen, then started down the hall. Kessler stayed with Brady by the front door, probably so he couldn’t escape or make a phone call, Brady guessed.

Brady stared after the man heading for the bedroom. He’d spent a lot of time with his brother, which meant he’d spent a lot of time around his security detail. They always followed procedure, and these guys were acting out of character.

His mind switched from the men to Grace. Had she found a hiding place where the intruder wouldn’t discover her?

Unlikely. Unless she’d climbed out the window again. Only, as she’d pointed out, they were too high up for her to find an escape route, unless she also worked as a circus performer or a cat burglar.

He rolled his shoulders, trying to give the impression of fatigue rather than tension.

If they found her here, what the hell was he going to say about it?

He barely knew Grace Cunningham. Yet if she was telling the truth about what had happened this evening at the consortium, he understood why she wanted to avoid falling into the clutches of these men. They’d said they wanted to ask her some questions. She’d said they were in the middle of a cover-up.

“I appreciate your going all out for my brother,” Brady said, angling for an opening to … He wasn’t sure what. “You seem pretty loyal. How long have you worked for him?”

“How is that relevant?” the man snapped.

“I haven’t seen you at the consortium.”

“I haven’t seen you, either.”

Down the hall, Mosley made a grunting sound.

He’d found her. Damn!

Kessler reached into his jacket and pulled out an automatic pistol, then dashed toward the back of the apartment, intent on aiding his partner.

Without making a conscious decision, Brady stuck out his foot and sent the man sprawling. He landed on the wood floor, halfway down the hall.

While the guy was catching his breath, Brady lunged for the desk, grabbed a glass paperweight and brought it down on the back of Kessler’s head. He went still.

As he watched blood seep from the man’s hair, Brady knew he’d just stepped over an invisible line from harassed citizen protesting a home invasion to criminal. Scrambling over the limp body, he sprinted toward the bedroom.

Mosley was also on the floor—at the side of the bed. He was on top of Grace, trying to wrest his gun from her grasp.

Brady grabbed the man’s coat collar and yanked him backward, just as the gun discharged, the sound reverberating in the confined space.

Chapter Five

Mosley went rigid. Brady yanked him off of Grace, tucked the gun into the waistband of his own slacks and rolled the man to his back. A bullet hole marred the upper arm of his gray sports jacket. When Brady pulled aside the guy’s coat, he saw that a bloodstain had spread across the fabric of his dress shirt. But it was seeping, not pumping from an artery.

Grace pushed herself up off the floor, saw the blood and gasped. “The gun … We.” She gulped. “I didn’t mean to hit him! I was just trying to keep him from shooting me.”

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Brady answered, wondering if it was true.

Grace’s eyes had taken on a glazed look. “I hit him.”

The security guy stared at her. “You bitch.”

Working methodically, Brady reached for the handcuffs clipped to the back of the man’s slacks and cuffed his wrists through the wooden bed frame.

Then he dashed back down the hall. Kessler looked dazed, but he was sitting up and fumbling for the weapon that he’d dropped when he went down.

“No, you don’t.” Brady grabbed his gun arm and twisted. The man yelped.

“I have your gun. Just don’t do anything stupid, and we’ll all be okay,” he ordered. Raising his voice, he called to Grace, “Get in here.”

When she didn’t appear, he called her again—more sharply.

She came around the corner of the hall, walking like a drunken sailor, and he knew she was still reacting to the scene with Mosley. And reacting to the knowledge that the whole situation was spinning out of control very quickly.

Did that mean she really was innocent? Regardless, he had to keep her functioning so they could get out of here—because now he was in this as deeply as she.

“His getting shot wasn’t your fault,” he bit out. “You were fighting for the gun, and it went off.”

“In court, that will sound like resisting arrest,” she answered, then made a strangled sound when she saw the blood dripping from the other man’s head onto the floor.

“Yeah, me too,” he muttered. “And they’re not cops.”

“But they can get us both for assault.”

“Maybe they won’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Depends on who they really are.” He looked at the man on the floor. “Head wounds bleed like a son of a bitch, so it looks worse than it is. Cover him while I make sure he’s not going anywhere.”

She held the gun in a two-handed grip while he got the guy’s cuffs, then helped Kessler to his feet and led him down the hall, where he secured him to the radiator pipe in his office The security guy glared at him. “You’re doing something pretty stupid here. She’s in this up to her eyeballs.” “How do you know?” “She was there.”

“But that doesn’t make her guilty of anything. She could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.” “You her lawyer?”

“Something like that. I’ll worry about legalities later,” he tossed off as he began grabbing items from his desk.

When he was finished, he turned back toward Kessler. “Did Wickers send you?”

Kessler pressed his lips together.

“For what it’s worth, I know Wickers is trying to cover up what really happened.” Turning to Grace, he said, “Wait for me in the living room.”

She nodded, and he hurried back down the hall. The bloodstain on Mosley’s sleeve wasn’t much worse, but Brady stopped to grab a tie and make a tourniquet.

The man winced but said nothing.

Returning to Grace, Brady saw she still looked dazed and sounded alarmed when she asked, “What are we going to do?”

“Get out of here.”

When she didn’t move, he grabbed her arm and hustled her out of the apartment.

She seemed to come back to herself as they hurried down the hall. “Sorry you got caught in the middle of something nasty,” she murmured.

“We’ll figure it out,” he answered, determined to find out what was really going on.

IAN WICKERS SCRUBBED a hand over his face. It felt as if he’d been up for a week of Sundays. In reality, he was still within his normal workday. Normal. Yeah, sure.

He bent to the preliminary autopsy report that the DC Police Department had rushed through the system, given the celebrity of the dead man. To Wicker’s relief, it confirmed that John Ridgeway had died of a heart attack. At least he wouldn’t get caught in a lie over that.

It also listed the drugs in the man’s system, with a notation that more might be added to the list after more extensive tests. He recognized them all except one, sildenafil.

When he looked it up, he found it was the active ingredient in Viagra.

Son of a bitch. At least it wasn’t illegal. But had Ridgeway been stupid enough to use it when he knew it was contraindicated with the alpha blockers he was taking for his high blood pressure? Or did the woman give it to him without his knowledge? Maybe she’d said it was something else.

He picked up the phone and dialed Yarborough’s pager. A few minutes later, the man appeared in his office.

“How is the interrogation going?” he asked.

“She claims she was hired by Middle Eastern terrorists.”

“Is that credible?”

“Maybe.”

“What’s their motive? ”

“She says she doesn’t know.” The security man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What is it?” Wickers snapped.

“The longer we keep her here, the riskier it gets. I suggest we move her.” “To where?”

“To the facility we have in Northern Virginia.”

Wickers weighed the pros and cons. Starting this cover-up had been a knee-jerk reaction to protect John Ridgeway’s reputation. Now they were dealing with unanticipated consequences. Like what if the cops wanted to search the Ridgeway Consortium? That would be a little inconvenient if he was keeping a woman captive in the basement.

He sighed and looked up to find Yarborough watching him. “Move her.”

BRADY WAS TEMPTED to sprint to the back stairs. Instead he took Grace’s arm, and they walked sedately down the hall to the elevator.

“You could have turned me in to those guys,” she whispered.

“Would a bodyguard turn in the woman he’s guarding?” “You’re serious about that?”

“Yeah,” he answered, still not sure which way this whole thing was going to go. Or was he already in too deep to get back on the right side of the law? Until a few minutes ago, he hadn’t done anything illegal. Then his instincts had taken over.

“Thanks,” she murmured. When they reached the basement level, she said, “They already spotted your car once. They’ll be on the lookout for it again.”

“I won’t be driving anything they’ll recognize.”

Her head snapped up. “What are you going to do—steal some wheels from one of your neighbors?”

“No. I have several vehicles down here—for undercover assignments.” He mentally considered his choices and decided on a gray Ford. The body had seen better days, but the engine was in excellent condition.

They strolled into the garage as if she was his houseguest and they were going out for groceries. But when he looked at her pale face, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms.

She clung to him, and he held her tightly.

“You feel better?” he asked her.

“No, but at least we got out of there.”

He nodded, but he knew in his gut that there was more to come. They’d be looking for him and Grace.

He eased away—it was dangerous to linger in the garage.

He led her to the car he’d selected.

“Get in the back—and lie on the seat—so it looks like there’s just one person in the car.”

“Okay.”

When she was settled, he reached into the carry bag he’d brought, took out a baseball cap and pulled it low over his face before heading for the automatic garage door. The gears ground, and he waited an eternity for the door to open. Finally, he drove into the night, a fugitive from the law. Or would the two security men report what had happened to the cops?

He drove for about twenty minutes before he looked over his shoulder to see Grace lying on her side on the backseat, hugging her knees against her middle.

“I think it’s safe for you to get in the front now.”

“Thanks.”

He pulled onto a side street and stopped. As she climbed into the front seat, she asked, “Do you think those men are really from the Ridgeway Consortium?” “Why do you ask?”

“They don’t seem much like the guards I’ve seen there. What if they work for someone else?” “Who?”

She shrugged, but he wondered if she might have an idea about their identity. “No idea?” he pressed.

“No.”

“What happened in the bedroom before I got there?” he asked, changing the subject abruptly.

She swallowed hard. “That guy came in and started looking around. I was in the closet. I knew he was going to find me there, so I waited until his back was turned and jumped him.” “Risky.”

“What would you have done?” “The same.”

She laughed. “At least I feel better about my decision.” “Don’t use me as a shining example of anything.” “Don’t run yourself down,” she shot back.

When he didn’t come back with a rejoinder, she looked out the window into the darkness. “Where are we going?” “Hell if I know. I haven’t gotten that far yet.” “Can I make a suggestion?”

“I thought you didn’t have any plans when you escaped from your apartment.”

“I didn’t have a car. But now that we do, I know of an unoccupied cabin in the Catoctin Mountains.”

“Up by Camp David?”

She nodded.

“Perfect. There’s a lot of security up there.” “A good reason to assume you won’t go in that direction.”

“Who owns the cabin?”

“Friends,” she answered quickly. “But they don’t use it at this time of year.”

“Some of your young DC professionals?”

Again she paused. “Yes.”

“Are you leading me into a trap? ”

“No.”

He waited a beat before bringing up another touchy subject. “You realize we can’t just leave two wounded men in my apartment.”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

IT WAS EARLY in the morning, but Washington was a city where traffic never stopped.

Phil Yarborough sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked white van as it traveled along the toll road to Reston, Virginia. When he felt the driver’s foot bounce on the accelerator, he looked over inquiringly.

“What?”

“Two patrol cars are closing in on us with their lights flashing. What do I do now?”

“You’re not exceeding the speed limit?”

“Of course not!” the driver snapped.

“And you don’t think you have a taillight out—or anything like that?”

“This vehicle was checked before we left the Ridgeway Consortium.”

“Better pull over.”

The van slowed, then swung onto the shoulder. One patrol car stopped in back of the vehicle. The other boxed them in front.

Yarborough watched as two uniformed officers got out of each vehicle. Lord, now what?

As they walked toward the driver’s door, he rolled down his window.

One of the officers pulled some papers from his jacket pocket. “This is authorization to transfer your prisoner.”

“What authorization?” Yarborough snapped. Reaching across the driver, he held out his hand.

The officer gave him the papers and he found he was reading a federal court order transferring custody of Karen Hilliard to the Justice Department.

“The orders comes from the Department of Homeland Security, under the Patriot Act,” the officer clarified.

Yarborough cursed under his breath. Somehow that Middle Eastern terrorist story had gotten out.

“Why wasn’t I informed of this?” he asked.

“I guess the authorization just came through.”

“I need to call my boss.” Yarborough wasn’t happy.

Chapter Six

The officer gave Yarborough a look that he himself had used on many occasions. It said that the cop held all the cards in this game.

“You can talk to him later. Right now, we want the prisoner,” he said, his hand on his hip, dangling inches from his sidearm.

The voice and the gesture weren’t lost on Yarborough. “Why is the Justice Department using local cops?” “We were in the area.”

Yarborough didn’t like it. But he didn’t see himself getting into a gun battle on the highway shoulder—with the cops. That would be a little tough to explain.

He climbed out, then walked around to the back of the van and unlocked the door. Karen Hilliard sat on a bench seat, her hands cuffed to a ring on the metal bar beside her seat, her legs shackled to keep her steps slow and labored.

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